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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

際

/t͡ɕi⁵¹/
border; boundary; juncture
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 2
  • radical 阜
  • 14 strokes

Etymology graph

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  • derived
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Origin

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声, OC *ʔsleds): semantic 阝 + phonetic 祭 (OC *ʔsreːds, *ʔsleds).

Related to 接 (OC *ʔseb, “to connect, contact”); see there for more (STEDT).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese阜 “mound”
  • soundChinese祭 “to make offerings to; to sacrifice to; to worship”
    • ideaChinese肉 “meat; flesh”
    • ideaChinese又 “again; once more”
    • ideaChinese示 “to show; to reveal; to indicate; to notify; to instruct”

Words built on it: 國際

Meanings

character
  1. border; boundary; juncture
  2. between
  3. moment
  4. to associate
  5. to be on the occasion of
  6. to be one's lot

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

際：壁會也。从𨸏祭聲。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. 邊、畔。 例：水際、邊際、一望無際
  2. 彼此之間。 例：人際、國際、校際
  3. 交接、會合。 例：風雲際會
  4. 中間、裡面。 例：腦際
  5. 當、值、逢。 例：際此佳日
  6. 前後交接之時。指在其間、在當時。 例：正要出門之際，天下起雨來了。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 際 was written 字形演變

  1. 際 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  2. 際 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Written form — n/a
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 際